Dotty Dumpling’s Dowry

3/22/2008 11:17:12 AM, saturday, march 22, 2008
I went here on a really slow friday night thanks to easter weekend. We got a sampler platter and a pair of burgers. Both were good, but the burger I had the night before was much better. Could have been an off night for me or the place since everyone loves them so much. Decent tap selection with one or two lines from lake louie, new glarus, captial, ale asylum, and other local favorites. Great service, but again, a slow night. Place was clean, random moose heads, a giant hand above the bar holding a volleyball, college sport team stuff up on the wall, lots of wood. You can probably get the picture. Nice place.

1/9/2008 3:25:02 PM, wednesday, january 09, 2008
Fantastic place to eat, with some seriously good hamburgers. I’m sure you can find faults with some of them, but the ones we had did rival some of the best ever. The beer list is decent enough, but I think I ended up drinking Fat Squirrel and Capital Skal, which don’t sound very exciting but gives you an idea of the things available that I havn’t had before. Mind you, if a decent IPA were on tap I would have gone for that instead, but as it was, they had around 30 taps and only 2-3 were something new to me, but I’m a beer whore so I’m used to being in that situation. Well, we ordered the burger medium (at least) and I think it came our medium rare, because there might have been more pink that I could see while sitting at the dimly lit bar. I ended up with food poisoning later that night, and the undercooker burger seems the likely culprit, though I can’t say that with 100% certainty, but it seems to be the only explanation. So, service was great, food was great, atmosphere was cosy and warm and dark, and the beer selection was decent enough to not disappoint a picky beer geek. Worth a visit if you want to eat something good with your beer.

1/26/2007 9:58:52 PM, friday, january 26, 2007
Finally made it to this place. Dimly lit but very homey. Gets crowded but for good reason. The burgers are as good as advertised. The beer selection is pretty good - but I’m a big fan of Lake Louie Warped Speed and they had it. About as good as a burger joint can get...except it is in the heart of campus and access is tricky.

1/11/2007 10:14:20 PM, thursday, january 11, 2007
This is a cool place. Very much a 50s sort of ambiance, with an eclectic smattering of memorabilia about -- breweriana, girlie posters, old 30s cheesecake cutouts, Big 10 stuff -- nice dark and red woods, low-ish ceilinged, intimate feel, and a lovely wide bar, with blues on the sound system the whole time we were there (late lunch, around Christmas). Great burgers, as mentioned, though certainly not the best I’ve had; quality midwestern tap selection highlighting New Glarus, Capital and Lake Louie. About 35 scotches and bourbons by the glass. Close to State Street, this certainly belongs on any extended tour of Mad City’s beer sites.

10/12/2005 12:46:05 PM, wednesday, october 12, 2005 [ Updated sunday, november 27, 2005 ]
Dotty’s is more restaurant than bar. In fact it didn’t even have a bar in its prior location (from which it was evicted by local government to make way for a hugely expensive cultural arts center that nobody wanted since there was already a perfectly vibrant cultural arts scene at the Civic Center, but I digress). It was just a serve-yourself-at-the-counter sit-down hamburger place that happened to have an unusually good tap lineup. After a 2-year absence they resurfaced 3 blocks away from the original spot. The new spread is a more conventional restaurant format with table service and a small full-service bar. The food is still excellent -- best hamburgers in the midwest. The tap selection is still pretty impressive for a hamburger joint but keep in mind that Dotty’s is still a restaurant first and foremost and that the taps are a secondary feature. So you won’t find rare stuff here. But you will find standards like Guinness, Bass, Harp, Miller, etc. You’ll also find some German standbys like Hacker-Pshorr and Spaten lagers, and local faves from New Glarus, Capital, and occasionally a guest tap for Great Dane, something rarely found off of GD’s own premises. This pubcrawl lunch stop would allow minimal interruption to your craftbeer-slurping activities.